JERUSALEM – A top Hamas leader said yesterday the terror group may accept a long-term truce with Israel, softening its call for the total destruction of the Jewish state.

Signaling a possible change in Hamas’ hard-line policy, Sheik Hassan Yousef said that if Israel removed its settlements from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the group could agree to allow the Jewish state to exist in peace and security.

Yousef, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, told The Associated Press he envisions a truce in which Israel and a Palestinian state “live side-by-side in peace and security for a certain period.”

“For us a truce means that two warring parties live side-by-side in peace and security for a certain period and this period is eligible for renewal,” Yousef said. “That means Hamas accepts that the other party will live in security and peace.”

Yousef told Reuters, “The whole world should seize this opportunity and build on it because this is a realistic position being taken by the Hamas movement.”

Yousef’s comments indicated that four years of fighting with Israel – during which the Israeli military has targeted the group’s top leaders for assassination – and the imposition of international sanctions have taken a toll.

Hani Masri, a commentator for the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, said Hamas was weakened by its listing as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union. Those listings led to asset freezes that dealt a strong blow to the group’s finances.

The group, which faced Israel’s hunt for Hamas leaders – including the killing of spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March – and Palestinian exhaustion with the uprising, could not survive if it did not change, Masri said.

An Israeli official yesterday rejected the overture as a ruse aimed at “destroying Israel in stages,” while Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath welcomed the new Hamas position as a “positive step” and said the group informed the Palestinian Authority of their new policy during recent talks.

Hamas’ top officials, headquartered in Syria, will be the ones to decide if a cease fire will be agreeable to the group – which has carried out many homicide bombings, but which is respected by many Palestinians and Europeans for philanthropical activities, such as hospital and school building.

Mahmoud Abbas, the leading candidate to replace Yasser Arafat as the head of the Palestinian Authority, will meet next week with the group’s leader, Kaled Mashal, in Damascus. With Post Wire Services

WHAT’S HAMAS?

* Started in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising.

* Outlawed as a terrorist group.

* Had been dedicated to the destruction of Israel and establishment of an Islamic state in its place.

* Name means “zeal” or “courage” in Arabic and is acronym for “The Islamic Resistance Movement.”